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Starving for Salvation: The Spiritual Dimensions of Eating Problems among American Girls and Women. By Michelle Mary Lelwica. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. x + 210 pp. $25.00 cloth.
Mary Michelle Lelwica makes explicit in the conclusion the question that undergirds all five chapters of Starving for Salvation: "What difference does it make to say that there are spiritual dimensions to girls' and women's struggles with food and their bodies?" (146). The major strength of Lelwica's book is that it makes clear in a variety of ways that it does indeed make a difference to look at the spiritual dimensions of women's problems with food and that religious studies, theology, and ethics can make distinctive contributions to cultural conversations about eating problems among American girls and women. Lelwica demonstrates subtly and forcefully that problems with food are problems with meaning and that the longing girls and women speak of is, ultimately, not for thin bodies but for significance in a culture that defines so narrowly not only what kinds of bodies are acceptable but what kinds of female public presence will be tolerated.
The first thing Lelwica does is broaden the...